Is the (Shadow)Priest the better Mage in WOW?

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...Ranged DPS ...
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I'm not sure where the best spot for this is, it's a point I thought of later, so I'll just start here.

Skan mentions in other areas Mage DPS being lower sustained than others realize. I'd like to talk about this a little more, though I'll ignore classes I don't know well enough. For my Rogue, if I'm playing without a true tank, I'm only holding back a little bit. Sure, I'm casting Feint more, but it's basically there as a precaution (pre-Eviscerate), and as a backup (post crit Evis). But because of Feint, I'm still attacking at nearly the same rate. There's also Vanish, but I don't like using Vanish to get rid of aggro, unless that aggro really means I'm going to die.

For Hunters, they have Disengage and Feign Death. Now, I haven't used those skills myself, but I watch Hunters regularly do a crit Aimed Shot (tons of damage), use one aggro-reducing skill, then go right back to fighting normally. So, it seems to me, they're not really losing any DPS for a group.

Now, Mages. Aggro reducing skills? Nope. Talents? Arcane Subtlety. It's frontloaded (20%, then 10%, then 10%), so I have 1 point into it. That point will probably be gone eventually. It helps Arcane Missiles, IAE, and maybe Polymorph? For Arcane Missiles, I try only casting that on clearcasts in groups. In groups I'm frequently spamming Scorch hoping for clearcasts and increasing mana efficiency. So AM isn't helped too much, since it's hard to get aggro spamming Scorch. Getting Subtlety for IAE is a joke as I see it - what's the benefit of 1 mob out of 8 not attacking you? Polymorph anger is not that hard to deal with, from what I've seen.

So Mages are left with pretty much nothing for reducing aggro. As stated before, I don't think doing anything offensive, besides maybe FN, when you get aggro is a good idea. It's another reason the first rank of Frost Nova is the best - you're getting less aggro on the mobs. Thus Mages, more than other DPS classes, have to be highly concerned with their aggro. You may learn to skirt the curve really well, and be doing just as much damage as you can without getting aggro, but you'll get burned. You'll do something stupid, or get an (un)lucky crit, and you've got aggo. Take a few hits from a particularly damaging mob, and you learn to hold back on the damage even more.

This makes it pointless to compare raw spell damage of Mages to other DPS classes. They have escape mechanisms to hit when they go too far, Mages don't. So a well played Mage loses more DPS going from solo to group play than most other classes. I say well played because the poorly played Mage will do plenty of damage, but will end up dead himself.